This invention relates to an improved process and apparatus for cooking moisture-containing food and an improved assembly for moveably supporting food while being cooked in a pressure vessel and more particularly, to a process and apparatus and assembly for cooking food in a gaseous atmosphere under controlled temperature and pressure conditions wherein heat transfer is provided resulting in improved efficiency of processing and increasing the bulk of food that can be processed during one cycle per given pressure vessel.
Cooking moisture containing food such as meat, poultry, seafood, vegetables and the like in a non-liquid environment is known in the art for example the apparatus and method disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,818,818 and 3,672,908. These patents disclose a cooking apparatus which is a pressure vessel or retort type including heating means, pressurizing means, and cooling means, each being operable independently of the other and a method of cooking including applying pressure to the food in a gaseous atmosphere prior to the application of heat, applying heat to the food while maintaining the pressure, rapidly cooling the food, and releasing the pressure. The use of the method and apparatus disclosed in these patents tends to reduce loss of moisture from the food during the heating and/or cooling cycle, retards bacterial growth after the heating cycle, and keeps the food integral.
The general practice in the art as disclosed in these patents is to support the food on a rack or a platform during the various processing steps or, when a continuous process is desired, on a moving conveyor. The use of such method or apparatus has serious disadvantages, particularly when the food being cooked exists in relatively small units, such as most vegetables or seafood products like clams or shrimp. It is the general practice to arrange such food to be processed on a series of trays, which trays must be placed apart within the processing vessel to allow sufficient heat exchange for the heating and/or cooling cycle. Placing apart a plurality of trays nessecitates providing a large ratio of space within the vessel to bulk of the food to be processed. Further, placing food to be processed on trays or other supporting platforms often results in a lack of uniformity in the extent of cooking.
It is the object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method of cooking food in a gaseous environment wherein the heat exchange between the food to be processed and the heating and/or cooling means is improved.
It is further object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for cooking moisture containing food in a pressure vessel wherein pressure is applied to the food in a gaseous atmosphere prior to the application of heat, heat is applied to the food while maintaining the pressure, the food subsequently is rapidly cooled or frozen, and the pressure is released subsequent to the initiation of the cooling and freezing cycle wherein the heat exchange between the food being processed and the heating and cooling or freezing means is improved, resulting in an increased uniformity of the processing.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an assembly and method for cooking food in a gaseous environment within a pressure vessel wherein the ratio of the space necessary in the cooking area to the bulk of food being cooked per cycle is greatly decreased.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for cooking moisture containing food in a pressure vessel in a non-liquid environment wherein the cooking area consists of an assembly which includes a rotable food container and rotation means therefore whereby food intermittently falls through the non-liquid environment during at least a part of the process period.